“A Deadly Conspiracy”
Acts 5:1-11
July 8, 2007
Note the honesty of the Bible, and of Luke as a historian. Surely, if the Bible were a book that was merely a propaganda piece, wanting only to “put the best foot forward”, aiming to impress people, this incident would have been covered up/swept under the rug, wouldn’t it? It paints an unflattering picture of two members of the early church—and by the way, I don’t at all presume to judge that these people were not followers of Christ. Misinterpreted, it could be seen as painting a vindictive picture of Peter, the leader of the early church, and even of God as being some kind of capricious, vindictive deity Who derives special pleasure from “zapping” people who step out of line. I mean, this whole sordid affair doesn’t exactly cast this whole Christian enterprise in the best light, does it? Well, I suppose that depends…
Incredible generosity marked the early church, as did incredible sincerity. Sure, people were/are people, and all of us have feet of clay, but there existed a sincere desire to help people, their fellow believers, so much so that there were many, with Barnabas used as an example, who sold their belongings in order to give to the church in order to provide for the needs of others within the congregation. The effect of this sincere generosity was that “there was not a needy person among them.” No one in the congregation—and by this time, the congregation was quite large, a megachurch by any standards—no one went hungry or without the basic necessities of life. This is the context of this passage, and we find it in the latter portion of Acts 4. Note first
I. Sinful Deception - :1-2
What we had here was a conspiracy. Ananias and Sapphira aspired to receive the type of acclaim that they thought Barnabas had, but without the same level of sacrifice. To all appearances, these two had done exactly the same thing that Barnabas had—to all appearances, that is. Having a piece of land at their disposal, they sold the land and gave to the church via the apostles. And let’s be realistic: they must have given a reasonably good percentage, right? If I sold my house, and gave 10% of the money to Chris and said, “here, I sold my house, and I give it all to you to use for people in the church”, and it was only $17 or $18K—which would be in the ballpark of 10% for our house—I think he’d be on to me fast, so quickly that I wouldn’t even dream of trying it, right? They probably gave a significant percentage of what they realized, probably over 50%, maybe well over 50%! Pretty generous, huh? And they get struck dead for it?
But the key to understanding this story is that they kept back a portion of the proceeds, but lied in stating that they’d given everything. :2 – “Kept back” (nosphizo) is a word used for “embezzle”—they “embezzled” their own money, in other words, in the sense that their keeping back a portion of the proceeds deceptively constituted lying to—and stealing from—God. Perhaps they’d entered into some kind of agreement with the church beforehand to sell the property and give the money to the apostles for the church’s use; perhaps they’d only agreed between themselves, in which case their agreement was to deceive for the purpose of looking good in the eyes of others. “Their motive in giving”, says John Stott, “was not to relieve the poor, but to fatten their own ego.” Kent Hughes called their actions, “pious pretense, religious sham, simulated holiness, Christian fraud.”
Aspiring to be held in high esteem in the eyes of others is a temptation that continues to plague us today, doesn’t it? Ajith Fernando points out that “in Christianity, all power comes through grace…the one thing that can hinder grace is pride. If we try to put on a show of being what we are not, we destroy our chances for growth by blocking the grace of God.”
Jesus said, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, Who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.” Ananias and Sapphira were concerned to do just the opposite: achieve a high but false reputation in the eyes of others.
II. Spiritual Discernment - :3-4
:3 – Five truths emerge from Peter’s words:
1. Satan filled Ananias’ heart. Some today doubt the real existence of Satan, but Peter didn’t; he attributed actions to Satan as he would to a real being—which he is.
2. Ananias was still culpable for his actions. It might have been Satan who was behind his actions, but Ananias listened to him and did his bidding.
3. Lying to the Holy Spirit was Ananias’ sin; he could have legitimately kept some of the money.
4. Lying to the church equals lying to the Spirit, because the Spirit fills the church. Note that Peter doesn’t hesitate to ascribe to the Holy Spirit the nature of deity; to lie to the Spirit is to lie to God, equating the Two. “You didn’t lie to men, but to God”. When I am speaking to people indwelt by the Holy Spirit of God, I’m not speaking just to an ordinary person. The Holy Spirit of God mediates all relationships between believers. Chew on that for a minute or three…
5. It was the desire for recognition that motivated Ananias and Sapphira to lie.
III. Sudden Death - :5-10
:5 – Ananias’ death is attributed to the shock and shame of having been discovered, but the verb used here in the original (ekpsycho) appears only in the NT to describe someone who has been struck down by divine judgment. This was no heart attack brought on by natural means, though it might have been a heart attack; it was clearly the judgment of God. “Great fear” didn’t come upon people because Ananias had suffered a heart attack, but because his death had been the hand of God.
:7 – Peter has been criticized as being judgmental, even vindictive, in his dealings with Ananias and Sapphira, but there’s no indication that he knew that God would strike Ananias dead by his words. Some have then said that he could, in view of Ananias’ death, have offered grace to Sapphira, telling her of her husband’s death in such a way as to give her an opportunity to repent. But an opportunity is just what he gave her—she certainly had the opportunity to tell the truth; he asked her a direct question, which ought to have been a tip-off to the fact that he was onto their conspiracy. She maintained the lie, though, and suffered severe consequences.
:7-10 – Sapphira’s death comes about the same way, about three hours later; unbeknownst to her, her husband was already dead and buried—it was customary to bury quickly in the hot climate of Palestine. She befell the same fate; in this case, she tells the kind of bold lie that is implied, but not stated, in Ananias’ words.
There is a parallel type of Old Testament happening, found in Joshua 7; I’d like you to take a few minutes now around the tables to read that passage together and answer several questions.
Table Talk
Read together Joshua 7. Answer the following questions:
• What motivated Achan to sin as he did?
• Does God’s punishment seem harsh? Why or why not?
• What does God’s punishment teach us?
IV. A Sobering Development - :11
This got the attention of the early church; it sobered them to the holiness of God and to their obligations in light of His holiness to live lives that reflected that holiness.
This narrative reminds us of the crucial fact that the Holy Spirit dwelt in the early church, and there are solemn, practical implications of that fact (cf. I Cor. 3:16ff.). Further, after reading such glowing accounts of the early church’s spirituality and vitality, this account serves to remind us that it wasn’t a storybook existence, that people then were as people are now, that the church is inhabited by saints who sometimes sin, that we ought to never expect “heaven on earth” even among those who are followers of Christ.
Practical Points
This is a pretty straightforward, if shocking, story, but there are a number of practical things we should consider as we look at the story of God’s judgment of Ananias and Sapphira, collaborators in a deadly conspiracy. But before we get to those points, let’s consider some
• Wrong conclusions:
It’s certainly possible that we can draw some false conclusions
o “If I sell something, I’d better give God all of the money or none of it!”
That is refuted right in the text; Peter told Ananias that he had it in his power to decide how much to give to God.
o “God strikes liars dead!”
The idea would be that we would expect God to act in exactly the same fashion today. If we took that route, there are a several conclusions that we could draw; I mention a couple:
- “So I’d better live in utter terror!”
While a healthier fear of God would do us all good, undoubtedly, it’s pretty clear from Scripture that this isn’t God’s design for us.
- “So I guess I’ve never lied to God!”
Ah…I don’t want to even go there, except to suggest that we not delude ourselves on this point. What is
o The cure for wrong conclusions: Acts is descriptive, rather than prescriptive.
Remember our guiding hermeneutic for understanding the book of Acts: we are reading history first and foremost, telling us how God did act in a particular time and place, in the early days of the fledgling church. We understand it as best we can; we draw principles from it; we take great care in attempting, however, to just migrate the first century situation into our context today and to say, “because God did it that way then, He’ll do it the same way today.” No, when I arrive at a bridge that is out, I don’t expect God to part the waters to let me cross (although wouldn’t that be a blast?). So we take care in our interpretation. But there are some points that we can clearly draw from Scripture that should impact our understanding and living:
• The deceptive nature of wealth
This is almost a side point, certainly not the main point of the narrative for us, but worth mentioning as well. Many followers of Christ are deceived by money. We believe that it’s our paycheck or our employer that supplies our needs, and thus instead of giving generously to God’s work by faith, we walk by sight and hoard it to ourselves, even though God has so much better for us. We are deluded meanwhile by the seductive claims of this world’s materialistic systems, suggesting that if we don’t have the nicest and newest, the biggest and brightest, we are somehow missing out on life. We are deluded by our money, and we settle for so much less than God desires, failing to trust God with our money.
If we took a survey of contemporary preaching on wealth, particularly of what is said by TV preachers, my guess is that we’d find a lot more preaching on how to acquire it, and how the possession of it is evidence of God’s blessing, than we would on the dangers of it. But the tenor of Scripture is far different from that. William Willimon said, “a surprisingly large amount of the Book of Acts deals with economic issues within the community.” Paul reminds us that “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (I Timothy 6:10). Money has tremendous power to lead us astray; the misuse of money, greed for more money, stinginess in the use of our money; these and other sins impair our ability to follow Christ!
• The deep gravity of sin
God will judge sinners! This idea of a God Who has no regard for holiness, Who is too gracious to judge sinners, is a modern-day construct and devoid of Biblical understanding. God judged Achan harshly in his sin, at the very inception of the life of the nation of Israel in the Promised Land, God’s covenant people; here, at the very inception of the church, God’s new covenant people, He does a very similar thing. We can see a clear parallel!
o Against the Holy Spirit
o Against the church
John Stott said, “Falsehood ruins fellowship. If the hypocrisy of Ananias and Sapphira had not been publicly exposed and punished, the Christian ideal of an open fellowship would not have been preserved, and the modern cry ‘there are so many hypocrites in the church’ would have been heard from the beginning.” I’m not of the opinion that their sin marked them as unbelievers; I am of the mind that these two were very likely followers of Christ who sinned. But when they sinned against God, they also sinned against brothers and sisters in the church. This is often the case, and vice-versa, and makes sin a very serious thing.
• The need for integrity
o Honesty with God and others
In Minneapolis, I attended a seminar on preaching given by Philip Graham Ryken, successor to James Montgomery Boice as pastor of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, who was himself successor to Donald Grey Barnhouse, one of the leading pastors of the twentieth century. It is said of Barnhouse that he would not allow his congregation to sing the third stanza of a great old hymn of the faith, At Calvary, because of this passage. It says, “now, I’ve given to Jesus everything”. Barnhouse said that the church basement would have had to have been turned into a morgue, the pastoral staff would have had to include a mortician, and in fact, there wouldn’t even have been much of a pastoral staff, truth be told!
Misrepresentation remains a too-common sin in the church. I’ve read resumes from people who, when you were finished, you’d swear that you were reading God Junior’s resume! The issue is integrity. When we consider this sobering text, we are challenged by, drawn to, the importance of being who we say we are, of not putting up a front, pretending to be people we are not. Why do people do that?
• “If people know me, they won’t like me.”
• “I can’t believe that anybody else in church struggles with this sin.”
• Some people do this for gain, either in fame or finance or what-have-you.
• In other words, fear, shame, and pride are some of the main reasons people put up false spiritual fronts.
Ephesians 4:25 comes into view: “Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another.”
o Not seeking the limelight
Again, it was this that motivated Ananias and Sapphira: they desired to be put on a pedestal for the glory and good of themselves, not for the glory of God and the good of people. We don’t need superstars at Red Oak; we need faithful servants of God and others.
• The critical need for churches to practice discipline
A faithful church will not hesitate to call to account those who are guilty of overt, non-repentant sin (I Timothy 5:20). Church discipline only seems judgmental and harsh to those who do not understand the truth we see in action here in Acts 5. Further, church discipline correctly enacted always has as its goal a calling back to the faith those who’ve sinned and gone astray. Church discipline is based upon an understanding of the holiness of God! Is this a denial of grace and forgiveness? No, to the contrary, it opens up the possibility of grace and forgiveness! To deal with sin is not to be judgmental or harsh; it is rather to have a sincere concern for the name of Christ, the testimony of the church, and the individual well-being of the person concerned.
• The need to live in holy fear of God
This is not a terror of Him, that He will act capriciously/arbitrarily to strike us down, but a holy fear that recognizes
• God is the righteous Judge.
• His demand upon us is to live lives of holiness, and to recognize His sovereignty.
• God is protective of the testimony of His church, and of His name. That doesn’t show itself to us plainly sometimes, and we may doubt the truth of it. After all, aren’t there plenty of Christians who misuse the name of Christ and seem to get away with it? Yes…
Perhaps recapturing a holy fear, a practical sense of the holiness and righteousness of God, would have a similar effect on us as it did on the early church (:12-16): there would be an increase in the church’s influence and image among outsiders.
The story of Ananias and Sapphira is not a feel-good, happy-smiley type of “you can make it, possibility-thinking” story, but it finds its place in God’s Word as a reminder to us of the holiness of God and our need to align ourselves with Him as His children.
